I’d like to introduce you to Bouchezinfo.com com, the new home for my portfolio of web project work, demo reels and resume. Now after a couple of years RABpromo.com has gotten a bit of a makeover, namely a new focus on “future of media” and a name tweak “rabPromo.com.” Why? Perhaps it’s a tribute to Syfy’s branding evolution from “Scifi” but, truth be told, we may never know.

Thanks for visiting!

To view my project, websites, resume and other info, visit Bouchezinfo.com directly or choose from the following:

update 5/20/10:
Illusionist, libertarian and all-around free thinker Penn Jillette from Penn and Teller fame is launching a new show with Revision3 called Penn Point, beginning Monday, May 24.~Cynopsis.com

…where antennas are torn down, all its stuff is being hacked up into little pieces, rebuilt, re-evaluated, repackaged, re-purposed or thrown away. Oh, Radio and Newspaper live next door.

Much like other bow-tie managed entities, years (decades) of excessive profits have created an industry wide comfort zone where many execs have come and gone, cashing in/out along the way. Of course those days are at an end with Main Stream Media (MSM) companies taking a severe public beating. With hundreds of job cuts at NBC and other companies, Tribune’s bankruptcy, the end of PC Mag’s “-azine” and the constant whine of revenue loss from newspapers, those left rowing the boat are being punished for those who have rowed before.

Perhaps broadcast deserve a little break though; after all they’ve been distracted by micro evolutions within their own space such as time shifting programs, Sony gear versus Panasonic, increased competition from newspapers, retransmission battles with cable, syndication issues, revenue swings from politics, etc. Then again, if you’re driving on the highway and distracted by a swarm of wasps inside your car, you’re still responsible for knowing that up ahead the bridge is out.

So as many philosophize the death of television, I wonder about a shift of massive proportions affecting multiple industries including radio, television and print collectively. Technology isn’t just killing television, it’s changing the way we communicate leaving the entire Main Stream Media up for grabs.

TV: The bigger picture shows no breaks for media content providers

So, yes traditional television will die in its current packagingonly to be reborn in other forms. Early versions hint that content may be split up by numerous new media providers like www.Hulu.com, Revision3 and others, but even as network parents try to maintain control and contain content Hulu struggles as “traditional media” repackaged in a shiny “new media” graphics. A blog, shortened commercial breaks and a widget don’t constitute a new business model. Regardless, it seems that technology from Boxee will continue the assault on media content providers by reconnecting users to content and thereby threatening to make brands irrelevant. Much like the way Google has made information brands (Webster, Wikipedia, etc.) irrelevant to the masses. After all, who cares / remembers the brand when relevant information from all brands it presented to you equally and immediately via search?

RADIO: Say NO to internet radio and yes to podcasting.

Due to its ease of use and the lack of public adoption of satellite & WIFI in vehicles and in the workplace (WIFI would deliver internet radio) it seems radio will outlive both traditional TV and newspapers. It also occurred to me that radio has the best advantage for “doubling down” on both their current analog business model and creating new online revenue streams. While TV & Print may have more money / audience behind them, staffs at radio stations are more nimble with less capital invested in equipment like printing presses and satellite trucks. Radio companies with diversified portfolios also have the attention of the tech savvy youth and vast audiences of local, high school & college sports within reach and ready to be converted to the next stats heavy online community. The real opportunity, however, is in the podcast race. With a clear advantage, as an industry, radio stations could surely take their fondness for formatting to an even deeper “niche” level and cash in big. NPR and others would have an even bigger advantage if they were to launch a massive information assault on the current community of podcasters and audio book creators.

NEWSPAPER: Don’t Go Changin’?
Of the MSMs there may be good reason for newspaper to not evolve. In fact there’s a very real possibility that some newspapers may find themselves rebuilding traditional staffs in the not so distant future! With the tension mounting by the Kindle and iPhone ebook apps, the newspaper industry finding a new home in the digital world on mobile devices in e-zine form. What would truly be mind blowing is if the newspaper industry could create its own tech revolution in “digital paper.”

So what’s the point? The point is that all of this is transitional and that the better able you are to adapt the more likely you are to survive. Survival will not come from your next show, tonight’s ratings or this weekend’s paper sales but from investing in new products, technology and actually listening to customers because the comfort zone is lost.

Over the years, like many marketing managers, most of my hires have been younger “up and comers” who bring energy and passion to the department. Personally, I enjoy mentoring and therefore find “generational” stereotyping very interesting. From a managerial perspective it’s often pretty helpful when projects require a little extra patients, but from a marketing perspective it’s incredibly fun to experiment with generational targeted messages. Here’s an interesting video and post I ran across on generation WE on http://www.PeachyGreen.com. I’m not advocating the project in anyway as I don’t really know anything about it. Still, the video is pretty powerful, well worth watching from a production stand point and everyone in business (especially the “mass audience” folks) should take note of the line “…we are the largest demographic.”

Millennial Youth to Take Over America’s Environment?Generation WE
Generation We is new to me. Have you heard of it? It’s the Millennial Generation of Americans born between the years 1978 and 2000. They are being hailed as the next “greatest generation.” I take just a little offense to that statement, being GenX myself.In an effort to mobilize, organize and propel Generation WE to their world changing destiny, author Eric Greenberg has launched a new website and video created by award winning producers. They accompany his book Generation We: How Millennial Youth are Taking Over America and Changing our World Forever.

In stumbling around Twitter I somehow landed on Shopnik.com which blew me away!Clean, cool and versatile… I have a gallery to launch on my “to do” list and this site would be an amazing way to showcase photography.

I ended up there from Brian Shaler’s site at (http://brian.shaler.name) and I highly recommend checking it out, he’s done some amazing work.

This is a definite winner in the “clever advertising” category! -Richard

Shopper Culture: Reach out and touch someone…in a bar.
Reach out and touch someone…in a bar.Ringsizercoaster That’s exactly what high-end retailer Hyde Park Jewelers is hoping people are doing. They want to communicate with potential customers when and where they are “in the mood for love.” So, they created a “ring-sizer” coaster that has shown up in bars around Denver, making it easy for the lovestruck to consider Hyde Park when they are meeting the woman or man of their dreams for a drink.And to make sure that popping the question is that perfect moment, Hyde Park created biggerwow.com, a website that focuses on ways to make the proposal unforgettable. With content that focuses on items like setting the mood, and proposal do and don’ts, Hyde Park helps out the soon-to-be-married in a fun and lighthearted way.Hyde_park_bigger_wowInteresting and engaging is a perfect way for high-end retailer like Hyde Park to disrupt normal behavior and interact with potential consumers in a new environment and with a new medium. And when matched with the great messaging strategy surrounding biggerwow.com , both end up feeding the consumers desire to have this time in their life (engagement) be the biggest and best it can be.

Over the last couple of years we’ve been entertained by the slick Mac vs. PC commercials that have repeatedly taken shots at Microsoft and to Microsoft’s discredit… Mac had a point, a lot of very good points. But you know all that and you probably know how much of the personnel computing market that Mac has been gaining over the last years… also to Microsoft’s discredits.
So finally we see Microsoft return fire in an incredibly clever branding move, Microsoft has now turned the branding war into a game of chess. While this spot is well done in an upbeat “we are the world” fashion, Microsoft has been ignoring it’s brand for as long as I can remember and its customers for even longer. While it’s nice to be seen as “friendly” and “of the people” Microsoft has bigger problems, they need to overcome labels like: “Overly complicated for no apparent reason” “difficult to maintain and update” “user-unfriendly” (and in vista’s case) “what the hell is this” or “counter intuitive” “constantly updating” “look it’s updating again and it’ll still suck” and so the list goes on. Certainly if Microsoft doesn’t step up its product and CRM, there will be different translations for their new “I am a PC” phrase like: I am overly complicated, I am user-unfriendly, etc. Not to hindsight bash Microsoft, but I believe they missed real opportunities with Vista. Vista could have been the new “uber” operating system everyone should want… I remember the first iterations of Windows being seen as wondrous improvements that were going to make my systems fly. The other big opportunity lost was their lack of intuitiveness in the product. What were they thinking?
As an aside, I just wan to mention that Microsoft is in th midst of another product nightmare with Internet Explorer and they’re probably trying to put out the “Vista fire” first, but it’ll be very interesting to see what happens on the browser side. Anyway, these next strategic branding moves are going to be ever more important and one could argue this is the best branding show since the rise of Avis. Below you’ll find a newest PC spot, I’ll try to post more of the campaign by this afternoon.
-Richard

It looks like I need to pass on the 3G iPhone. Truth be told, I found the 3G build up a big letdown and apparently I’m still a little bitter. Here’s why, Apple chose main stream instead of going geek, and I get it… there’s way more money in “world product domination” than there is in the “early adopter racket,” but is there longevity too? Let’s face it, Apple left me and many others out on the sidelines and consumers don’t give many mulligans. Can Apple serve the masses and still deliver to the geeks or will it cost them their coolness? Is this reminiscent of the 1982 Cadillac Cimarron, the Cadillac everyone could afford (that in turn arguably killed Cadillac)? …or is the iPhone so cool and such a niche product they can stay ahead of the curve with the apps store? I submit to you what could be a bad sign, this 3G iPhone commercial which takes a sharp turn away from the very cool ipod/iphone commercials we love so much. That being said, I predict a very cool phone in the near future that will cost me a fortune and replenish Apple of their coolness, after all the may have already done the impossible by in fact, spreading “Apple coolness” to the masses. So, while we wait to see how long Apple can fight off competition while keeping the geeks at bay and working the buzz machine, I’ll keep going through rss feeds and Google alerts searching for a sign that the next multi-camera 32 gig iPhone with at least one 5 megapixel phone (oh, and while I dream it can acts as a wifi router and… wait for it… cut and paste). That reminds me, somebody needs to talk to BMW about the 1-series.

Today a photo on the TWIP blog caught my eye and the message below caught my attention.Here’s the gist of it.

“Serious communicators find an audience first, then go craft a story that fits the audience. Photographers should consider this approach as well. If you’re taking photos for kids, you better get down on your knees because they see everything from 30 inches. If you’re taking pictures for an intelligent audience, include lots of details. Get it?” -Scott Bourne

While you can certainly apply the thinking below to many areas, it struck me as great advice for creating niche products and their marketing messages.

-Richard

btw, if you have a pretty serious interest in photography (also called an addiction) I highly recommend the TWIP podcast and blog found at www.TWIPphoto.com.</p

Aside from the obvious “because they can” here are a couple reasons why Google would add another browser to an already seemingly crowded market.

Cloud computing optimization and access.Google has a lot riding on cloud computing which means they have a lot riding on other company’s browsers… until now.I guarantee you that Chrome will be “optimized for internet apps” giving Google an edge on Microsoft in the cloud and control over the technological advancement of internet based applications. *Chrome could even signal the real launching point for the popularity of Google’s app suite.

“What if…” Let’s face it, you can’t win a race you’re not in and Google can afford to enter this race. Let’s just say for a moment that Chrome becomes extremely popular and billions of people begin using it.If this were to happen the pay out for Google would be amazing, just in product control and optimization let alone the potential for better ad integration.

Google is smart enough to hedge their bets strategically by, for example, optimizing their products for the iPhone.This is important because if Google Android doesn’t take off, they’ll still have branding embedded in the most popular mobile platform out there.

Now, that being said I never intended my blog to be all about Google but I just saw (and heard) so many goofy headlines about why Google would launch Chrome that I felt like chiming in.

Google Ad Pitch Strategy Revealed

To all broadcasters, agency reps, media buyers, radio folks, newspaper, billboard, magazine, and all other ad supported media out there… Google’s CEO has declared war on you and entire ad supported business model be it television, print, web or whatever.You see, last week Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared on CNBC’s Mad Money with Jim Kramer and while the majority of the show focused on Jim cheerleading for Google stock, Mr. Schmidt uttered 2 words during the program that caught my attention “Measurable Advertising.” That’s right, Google has discovered your weak link and they just let the cat out of the bag.

(Insert cliché of choice here equivalent to “The time is now!”).

So, assemble your greatest minds, begin new research projects, prepare to storm the Neilson gates or whatever you need to do, but focus your efforts on how you’re going to compete against “Measureable Advertising” because like it or not, Nielson may have met its match and you may soon be taking a check from Google’s ad placement technology.

Not possible? Okay, let’s see:

Google already has self ad-serving tools for placing one’s own television, radio and internet ads.

Google will continue growing these types of partnerships until they can deliver ads across multiple platforms to any region or demographic in the country (or world).

CYNOPSIS DIGITAL – TODAY’S TOP STORY: Verizon announced plans to roll out a series of interactive widgets for its FiOS TV service, laying down a gauntlet of sorts that should force the cable industry to accelerate its iTV efforts. The first “Widget Bazaar” apps, which have already begun rolling out in select markets, will provide TV access to some of the most popular applications on the web: an ESPN Fantasy Football widget will provide real-time fantasy updates; a Facebook widget will enable viewers to update their status as well as view photos and friend updates; and a Twitter widget will provide two-screen, real-time interaction with television programs. Later this month, customers who subscribe to Verizon’s Home Media DVR service will be able to search and view online videos from the popular online video portals blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh. A My Videos feature will also allow subscribers to access videos stored on their PCs. Even more exciting is a plan to open up the platform to third-party developers who will be able to offer apps to the public through the service’s Widget Bazaar outlet – Verizon’s own living room version of the app store. Full edition: CYN DIGITAL.

When millions of eyeballs are on the line it usually takes a pretty hefty budget to make sure you keep them. You better come up with something cool. When you’re messing with a brand that’s beloved with cult-like obsession, you better do something really special… unless (gasp!) you’re not worried about the core that’s gotten you here.

Now, admittedly, I was “on the fence” when I heard SciFi was re-branding to Syfy and still can’t imagine being in that meeting!

Check out the whole slew of creative posted at ProudCreative.com, the agency behind the work.

When I caught The Dirty Blog article revealing the creative behind Syfy’s new campaign I couldn’t help but check it out and it’s very cool! It’s cool enough to cut through the clutter and probably “wow” enough to be memorable but, on the surface, it just doesn’t seem to have that special something to win hearts and minds. At least not those of super sci-fi fan club realm.

An overhaul, not an evolution. At a glance it seems that Syfy is shooting for even bigger audiences than it’s geeky core can give while probably assuming the core will hang in there regardless. The work that’s posted is pretty impressive. There is, however, one odd ID that caught my eye because it looks like they just couldn’t get a purple plasma-like build of the Syfy logo to work.

Can Syfy keep the geeky? I just happened to check Twitter and couldn”t believe it, Syfy was trending! Scanning the tweets you realize pretty quickly that sci-fi fan’s are not impressed with the new look, check out a cross section of Scifi vs Syfy tweets at here > Scifi vs Syfy: Twitter Attacks . If you look even closer perhaps you’ll see the opportunity I saw to give that core audience their own online community. While the uproar is pretty much hatred for change, there’s still a love for the content in spite of Wrestling (as many comments show) and a large geeky audience to drive over to a new online resource for the “SciFi” crowd. So the question is, will Syfy step up and keep the geeky? Let me know your thoughts in the comments! What about you? Love it or hate it? Please comment!

My tweet went something like this when I heard about the change:

richardbouchez: Scifi changing SYFY, this is either ridiculous or genius! Glad I wasn’t in that meeting!

Not that it’s anything we think the New York Times Company should do, but we thought it was worth pointing out that it would cost the Times about half as much money to send every single one of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead of a physical newspaper each day. more…

So that got me thinking about the media futurists I read who have counted out the possibility of newspapers successfully monetizing the web. Perhaps digital paper is too far off to be a feasible new way to read the “paper” but is it too far fetched to say that a new technology could save them? Perhaps a new Kindle or some larger “e-book” friendlier version of the iPhone? *Michelle Machmanus, of OHL, pointed out via a Linkedin discussion there is new thinner & lighter tech on the way like a fascinating e-book reader from PlasticLogic.com.

Certainly newspapers will have to create a new business model shedding expensive presses and delivery staff regardless, but what if major newspapers got in bed with tech companies much like the Apple & At&T deal? Right now devices like the Kindle are extremely expensive for average consumers who don’t travel much and they compete with lower priced gadgets like cell phones. Could a subscription model emerge that would subsidize the cost of a Kindle (for example) enough to convince the consumer to purchase a Kindle and a NY Times subscription? Do Randomhouse and other book publishers need to get on board to create an Itunes version for newspapers and books?

Through my own experience working in media, I believe the newspaper industries biggest challenge is cultural not technological. Maybe it won’t be a newspaper investing in new tech, maybe an “Amazon.com” will purchase a newspaper’s identity, hire a slew of unemployed writers, editors & photographers, deploy them across the across the country and create a new generation of Kindle News.

What? It could happen:-)

Unfortunately I have not used a Kindle prior to writing this and don’t know how the user experience of reading a newspaper on one would rate. I do have an ipod Touch and find that reading e-magazines on it is do-able, although not ideal. If you have a Kindle or some insight as to what it would take to make the leap from paper to e-gadget, please weigh-in below in the comments and let me know if you would subscribe to national / local news sites if they gave you a discounted Kindle or iPhone.

Need to get creative or inspire a client to get out of the box?This article will help you or your clients get the ball rolling! Get creative examples done “on the cheap,” advice on where to begin and how to avoid becoming memorable for the wrong reasons! Applies to print, web, video, email or whatever!